Click here to download the PDF

Updated Luxury on a Premier Street Blocks to Downtown

With roots dating back to 1929, combined with designer updates for 21st century living, this home defines the essence of the Aragon neighborhood, one of the most sought after in San Mateo. Classic Spanish appeal defines the exterior, from the perfectly selected color palette to the red tile roof and brick walkways, all framed by manicured lawn, boxwood hedges, and colorful, mature landscaping. Inside, parquet wood floors, glass doorknobs, period-style lighting, and an adobe-style fireplace recall the home’s early heritage. Adding luxurious designer panache is the remodeled kitchen and upstairs bathrooms with high-end finishes. A tremendous skylight in the kitchen adds amazing natural light, the adjoining breakfast room is an enchanting spot for casual meals, and the family room offers wonderful space for today’s style of living.

Personal accommodations comprise 5 spacious bedrooms arranged over two levels. There are two bedrooms on the main level, ideal for guests or as home office space, with a large bathroom featuring classic tile appointments plus a separate powder room that serves the main living areas. Upstairs, the master suite includes a sumptuous Carrara marble bath, plus there are two additional bedrooms and a remodeled bath, also finished in Carrara marble. Adding the finishing touch is a concealed laundry area conveniently located upstairs, a partial basement for storage, and a detached 2-car garage. Fast, reliable gigabit fiber internet supports working from home and pristine video call quality. Inviting play and outdoor entertaining is the large backyard with patio space, lawn, and mature foliage for added privacy. Colorful and fragrant blooms surround the home for many months of the year. Rounding out the appeal of this outstanding home is its access to excellent local schools, including acclaimed Baywood Elementary, and just blocks to Central Park, the San Mateo Main Library and downtown San Mateo.

To schedule a showing please click here

Facts and Figures

Offered at $2,695,000
Sold for $2,716,000
5 bedrooms 3.5 bathrooms
3,058 sq. ft. home, per Realist
6,600 sq. ft. lot, per county records
Built in 1929
Baywood Elementary, Borel Middle School, Aragon HIgh School (buyer to veirify)
Listed on June 5th, 2020

Listed by Raziel Ungar

Compass

Contact Raziel

Amenities

Circa 1929 with classic Spanish architectural style and beautifully updated interiors
5 bedrooms and 3.5 baths on two levels
Approximately 3,050 square feet of living space
Impressive front entrance framed by manicured lawn and boxwood hedges lining a brick walkway to the entrance
Divided light glass front door and matching sidelights opens to the foyer with parquet wood floors beneath a barrel vaulted ceiling with iron pendant light
Elegant formal living room featuring barrel vaulted ceiling with iron chandelier, parquet wood floor, and signature front window flanked by recessed shelving; an adobe-style fireplace is outlined in original tiles and topped with a simple wood mantle
Double French doors open to the formal dining room with coved ceiling, chandelier, and three side-by-side operable front windows; parquet wood finishes the floor
Charming breakfast room with windows on three sides features original built-in china cabinetry with glass fronts and serving counter
Remodeled chef’s kitchen has white cabinetry topped with beautiful, custom counters and subway-set white-tiled backsplashes; a huge skylight adds abundant natural light
Stainless steel appliances include an LG gas range with griddle and 2 ovens, KitchenAid dishwasher, and Frigidaire refrigerator
Inviting family room, just off the kitchen, has a ceiling light and recessed lighting, hardwood floors, and French doors to the patio and rear yard
Two main-level bedrooms (one without benefit of closet) are served by an updated bath with pedestal sink, tiled wainscot, tub, and separate shower with decorative glass door
Upstairs master bedroom suite has a lighted fan, crown molding with dentil detail, and organized walk-in closet; remodeled en suite bath with skylight, Carrara marble tile floor, furniture-style mercury glass mirrored vanity with two sinks and Carrara marble counter, tub, and separate frameless glass shower
Two additional upstairs bedrooms, one with ceiling light and one with lighted fan, are served by a remodeled bath in Carrara marble with dual-sink vanity, tub with overhead shower surrounded in white tile, and private commode room
Other features include: powder room with beadboard wainscot; upstairs laundry with Samsung washer and Kenmore dryer; partial basement for storage; detached 2-car garage; gated driveway
The home is wired for symmetric gigabit fiber internet, which regularly achieves full gigabit speeds and 8 ms latency; consistently supports pristine video calls; ideal for working from home
Outside, the fenced rear yard offers plenty of space for entertaining and play; colorful and established plantings surround the home including purple and white wisteria, white jasmine, bougainvillea, azaleas, hydrangeas, camelia, roses, and freesias creating a beautiful and fragrant atmosphere for both outdoor and indoor enjoyment
Lot size of approximately 6,600 square feet

Outstanding, family-filled neighborhood featuring tree-lined streets with sidewalks just blocks to Central Park, San Mateo Main Library, downtown San Mateo, and San Mateo and Hayward Park Caltrain Stations
Excellent San Mateo schools include Baywood Elementary, Borel Middle, and Aragon High

A Note From The Sellers

When we first saw 18 Aragon Blvd, we loved the family-filled neighborhood and were enamored with the gorgeous wood floors and light-filled rooms.

Our first spring and summer in the house, we were so enchanted with everything that bloomed in the yard. It felt like a new surprise blossomed every week, and for each warm season that followed, we filled our kitchen window ledge and little nooks throughout the house with sweet-smelling cuttings from our own garden.

During the first year, we worked with an architect to completely overhaul the kitchen, expanding it, modernizing it to fit our needs and installing wood flooring to seamlessly match that in the rest of the house. Our favorite -- most precious -- spot in the kitchen became the coffee nook, equipped with a pull-out shelf and electrical outlet within the cabinet underneath, where we could stash our coffee grinder. We started each day right there with a freshly ground and brewed cup of coffee. And we will forever have fond memories of peaceful mornings in the breakfast room, watching the hummingbirds flit around the wisteria blooming right outside the windows.

We welcomed our daughter in the summer of 2016, and our home became much more lively! The downstairs floor plan features a continuous loop linking all the main rooms together, and it’s fun to remember how our daughter progressed around that loop: first clumsily wheeling herself around the loop in her walker, then pushing her toy shopping cart, and eventually, endless games of “monster chase” running around the loop, shrieking with laughter.

We appreciated having the downstairs bedrooms as a guest room for visiting family and home office space. John works for a tech company in Palo Alto and frequently worked from home, even before the shelter-in-place started, so having dedicated space for a home office was invaluable. Notably, video calls from home via the symmetric gigabit fiber internet were consistently even better quality than video calls from his Palo Alto office.

Our home and backyard hosted many planned and impromptu get-togethers over the years. It was perfect for our daughter’s birthday parties; the fenced-in backyard meant we parents could all fully relax and let the kids play, knowing they were safely contained.

We loved our close proximity to everything: being walking distance to storytime at the Main Library and Central Park with its open space, playground, miniature train that ran on weekends and holidays, Japanese garden (our daughter loved watching the koi fish feedings), and ice skating rink during the winter months. We loved being able to walk to downtown San Mateo for date nights, and the easy access to 92, 101 and 280 for driving elsewhere in the area. Plus, when commuting by Caltrain, John appreciated starting the day with a short, peaceful walk through Central Park to the Caltrain station, as well as the convenience of being able to swing by Draeger’s to pick something up on the walk home.

We were also blessed with amazing neighbors up and down the street -- the kind you can borrow butter from or share surplus watermelon with (which we frequently did) -- and enjoyed an annual block party each summer when all the neighbors came together with food, yard games, and a blow-up water slide.

We cherished our time in this beautiful home and this wonderful neighborhood, and we hope the new owner of 18 Aragon finds the same happiness here that we did.

To schedule a showing.....

Click here to schedule

About the Aragon Neighborhood

Aragon has some of the best floor plans for good-sized homes in San Mateo, and, despite its elevated home prices, offers excellent value for the dollar compared to its slightly pricier neighbor, Baywood, which is just a few minutes closer to downtown. (The neighborhood is west of El Camino, east of Alameda, and north of the 92 freeway.) Most recent Aragon sales have all landed north of $2.7 million, with neighborhood homes selling for between $2.5 and $3 million and a median of $2.7 million.

As a neighborhood with decades of cache, Aragon has attracted owners unafraid to put a personal stamp on their homes. Original Aragon construction was somewhat modest; the neighborhood’s imposing homes often had only two bedrooms. Over time, most Aragon real estate has been upgraded and expanded to where most now have at least three bedrooms and more than 2,000 square feet of living space.

Aragon takes its place not only among San Mateo’s finest neighborhoods, but among those of the entire county. Whatever the state of the overall housing market, Aragon will always sit atop many homebuyers’ wish lists.

To view a detailed google map of the Aragon neighborhood, click here. The MLS area is 436.

Favorable

Excellent, central location

Leafy, tree lined streets

Homes tend to have a lot of character and a historic feel

Homes are on the larger side for San Mateo

Adverse

Homes are more expensive than most in San Mateo

Slightly smaller lots than neighboring Baywood, but comparable to Burlingame

Schools

Aragon offers location, natural beauty, fine homes, a familial sense of community – and access to San Mateo’s most highly-regarded public schools. Aragon residents send their children to Baywood Elementary School, Borel High School and Aragon High School, completed in 1961 after a 20-year surge in San Mateo’s overall population. The Aragon and Baywood neighborhoods are the only two in the whole area that are within walking distance of schools K-12, a strong selling point. Often considered the most desirable of San Mateo’s high schools, Cold War-era Aragon High is rumored to have been designed for multiple uses: in times of war, it is said, the school could double as a munitions factory.

History

Like so much of San Mateo, Aragon was once the property of one person, in this case Tobin Clark. The Clark Estate began in Hillsborough and continued past what is now Aragon High School into land that was then unincorporated county land. Aragon – the subdivision laid out between Hobart Avenue (south), Notre Dame Avenue (north), Alameda de las Pulgas (west) and El Camino Real (east) — was annexed by San Mateo in 1929, right about the same time builders began constructing one- and two-story Spanish-style, Tudor and English-style homes on what would become a series of storybook, tree-lined residential streets.

Development would continue past World War II, but the bulk of Aragon real estate was completed between 1930 and 1940. The neighborhood quickly became a San Mateo favorite. Today, Aragon homes for sale command prices well over $1 million, with homes on Avila Road, Aragon Boulevard and Seville Way selling for between $1.1 and $1.6 million. A few outliers can fetch as much as $2 million, but this is not the rule. A basic three bedroom home will start around $1.1m and a three or four bedroom home that is fully renovated and move-in ready will sell in the $1.3m – $1.5m range. Lots in Aragon are usually about 6,000 square feet.

Learn More About Aragon

A HIGHLY SOUGHT AFTER, TREE-LINED NEIGHBORHOOD WITH A HISTORIC FLAIR

Aragon, along with San Mateo Park and Baywood, is one of San Mateo’s most desirable neighborhoods. Comprised of tree-lined streets and large, well-built pre-war homes, Aragon sets a standard for family-friendly traditional neighborhoods. With great schools, spacious homes, easy access to shopping, restaurants, and convenient transportation options, this home meets almost every line item on an upper-middle-class homebuyer’s punch card including walkability to Central Park and San Mateo’s vivacious downtown.